


Hereafter

by Zapenstap



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explosions, F/M, Feels, First Love, Mental Health Issues, Politics, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Soldiers, Some Humor, Terrorism, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:35:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29794779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zapenstap/pseuds/Zapenstap
Summary: The 1xR brigade is hosting a March Madness challenge to write fics to prompts of between 100 and 1,000 words... in 24 hours. I have decided to write a story chapter by chapter where each chapter has to adhere to the new prompt. It opens some months after Endless Waltz, with Heero on a hill.
Relationships: Dorothy Catalonia/Quatre Raberba Winner, Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker, Relena Peacecraft/Heero Yuy
Comments: 73
Kudos: 48
Collections: Love Reflection March Madness (2021)





	1. Someone is Watching You Smile

**Author's Note:**

> March Madness #17 Prompt  
> “Someone is Watching You Smile”

Heero could barely make her out. Through the glass, he caught glimpses of her at the podium, a part of her cheek and jaw, a lock of wheat-colored hair falling over her suit jacket—gray blue today, like her eyes. When she turned her head, he saw the slight upward turn of her lips. 

She was smiling. So, the meeting was going well then. That was good. He relaxed. Relena deserved a good day. 

He had chosen his vantage point carefully. He stood on a hill overlooking the legislative building where the ESUN assembled to discuss unification with the Colonies. It was Spring on Earth and the hill was covered in sun-soaked green grass carefully manicured by government-employed gardeners. Heero’s view through the window was obstructed by a birch tree, the white bark of the trunk and branches forking across the glass. 

“Heero. I thought it was you.”

Heero started. He had not heard anyone approaching. He turned to see Trowa Barton trudging up the hill. The solider was carrying two bags.

“Here,” Trowa said, extending one of the bags toward Heero. “I brought you one.”

“One what?” Heero asked, eyeing the bag.

“A swag bag.”

Heero said nothing.

“For the Preventers,” Trowa said. “Orientation was this morning. Everyone was there except you and Quatre. Of course, Quatre had an excuse.” 

“I’m still not sure,” Heero said. “About joining, I mean.”

Trowa set the bag down. “There’s no obligation to join. Not for us former Gundam Pilots anyway. You could say it’s an honoree position, so you’re a member whether you want to actively get involved or not. However, they could use you. It’s going to take some time to build up a proper peacekeeping force, especially after all those budget cuts following the Mariemeia incident.”

Heero looked down. In the bag, he could see a jacket with the Preventers logo embroidered on the arm. “Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was no trouble,” Trowa said, straightening. “I saw you up here so I thought I would come say hello. Are you watching Relena? Is she speaking?” He turned to look toward the building, shading his eyes with one hand to block the sun’s glare. 

Heero hesitated. Trowa’s voice was very neutral, but that was like him. Out of all the former Gundam Pilots, Heero found Trowa’s company easiest to tolerate. He was perceptive and analytical, but not judgmental. He seemed to accept everything at the value with which it was presented. 

“Yeah,” he admitted finally. “I told her I’d be close.”

“I heard she’s your girlfriend now,” Trowa added. “Is that right?”

Even in the direct light of the sun, he felt a chill rush through him. But he didn’t retreat from the question. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I asked her," he admitted. "I just don’t really know how to do this.”

Trowa nodded. “You know, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think anyone really does.”

“You mean us Gundam Pilots? Doesn’t Duo have a girlfriend? That girl Hilde?”

“No. I mean anyone. Being someone’s significant other… well, it’s significant, isn’t it? There’s no guidebook. We all learn as we go.”

“Not everyone’s significant other was once Queen of the World.”

“True. But neither is everyone’s significant other a Gundam Pilot.”

Heero looked down. He was not good at taking compliments. Or was it a compliment? Trowa had a way of making stated facts sound like compliments and compliments sound like stated facts. 

“Is she meeting you after the conference?” Trowa asked.

“We’re going to eat lunch together,” Heero said. 

“It’s been a long couple of days,” Trowa noted. 

“Yeah, but she’s in a good mood.”

“Oh? How do you know?”

“She’s smiling.”

“She doesn’t really frown, though, does she? I’ve noticed that.”

“No. But she looks blank-faced when she’s having a bad time, and when she’s in a temper, her eyes get hot.”

“That’s sweet.”

“What’s sweet?”

“That you know her moods by her expressions,” Trowa said. “I think you’re doing fine. You and Relena, I mean. You two are going to be fine.”

Heero didn’t say anything. Perhaps it would all be well as Trowa said, but even so, he was a bit afraid. He could admit that to himself. He didn’t know what he was doing. He feared that something would happen. What if Relena changed her mind about him? He couldn’t imagine it, but he still worried about it. She could change her mind. He had changed his mind about her after all. The way he felt now compared to when he had first met her… Well, they were not comparable. Or… well, perhaps there had been something even then. He couldn’t really remember. He just remembered thinking she had to die, and then thinking he had to make sure she lived. Everything that had been going on underneath that was a scramble.

“I want to tell her—” he began to tell Trowa.

The explosion blew him off his feet.

Heero felt grass in his mouth and scrapes on his hands. He blinked, but the air was full of dust. He could not see. He also could not hear anything except a high-pitched ringing. He felt hands on his back. Someone was shaking him. 

Heero pushed himself to his knees. The hands belonged to Trowa. Trowa’s face was covered in dust. Dust was everywhere. He tried to say Trowa’s name, but he could not hear his own voice. When he opened his mouth, he tasted only dust. His eyes darted toward the building—the building where Relena had been speaking, where Relena had been smiling. 

Through the dust, he could just make out a mountainous pile of rubble.


	2. Fireflies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing from the explosion - Trowa's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing with Love Reflection's March Madness challenge
> 
> #23 Prompt - “Fireflies”

The force of the explosion knocked Trowa flat onto his back. The wind left his lungs in a rush. He could not draw breath. He could not move. For several seconds, he lay insert, staring out at a blue sky, watching the ESUN building collapse.

The impact came from the west. From the hilltop, it looked like an invisible giant had swung a fist into the side of the building, which buckled and imploded on impact. Seconds later, the rest of the building trembled and crumpled in on itself.

Roiling dust darkened the sky.

_"Do you see them, Trowa?”_

_Catherine stood at the edge of the light of the circus tent, her bare feet in a pool of gold, her arm extending toward a field of grass beyond, all shades of gray beneath a moonless sky. Only her head turned to look at him, a cloud of auburn curls bouncing against her cheek._

_At first, Trowa did not know what she was pointing at. He saw only an oncoming curtain of black as dusk darkened into night. But then she gestured. His eye caught tiny bits of light blinking pale gold between the shadowed blades of shin high grass._

_"What is that?” he asked._

_"Fireflies,” Catherine said. She stretched her arms high above her head, clasped her hands together and then released. “We don’t have them on the Colonies, but they’re one of the things I love most about the Earth. They are a kind of beetle actually and can be found on every continent. Pretty, aren’t they?”_

_"They are,” Trowa agreed, crouching down so he could see them better. “Why do they do it? Light up like that I mean?”_

_Catherine put a finger to her lips. “You know,” she said. “I’m not sure, but I think they’re signaling to each other. Looking for mates maybe? Or kin? I do know that you never see them in the cities. They need the darkness to find each other.”_

_“One flashes its light and the other answers,” Trowa said. “That’s nice. They’re never alone.”_

_“Well, aren’t you a romantic!” Catherine laughed, teasing him with her voice. But her eyes were soft with affection. “Someday, when you bring someone home, I’m going to tell them that story.”_

_He didn’t object. Catherine was his family. She had been a big sister to him when he didn’t know he needed one, when in his heart he was still No One, an empty vessel. But now he had a family. Cathy was his kin. Because of her, he had a home to bring someone to. He thought he might want that someday. He smiled thinking of it how it would be._

_He was lucky to have someone like her. He wasn’t alone in the darkness anymore._

Trowa could not see anything through the dust. It was so thick he had to pull the collar of his turtleneck sweater up around his mouth so he could breathe at all. Heero was on his hands and knees beside him. His face was caked in grime, as Trowa assumed his was as well, but his eyes were wide and wild, the whites showing all around the irises.

Heero’s mouth moved, but he immediately choked on dust. Trowa still read the word. Relena. Heero stumbled to his feet, covering his face with his elbow. His eyes looked like the eyes of a wild animal—a trapped, panicked animal.

Trowa rooted around on the ground until his hands landed on one of the swag bags that he had brought up the hill. He reached inside and tossed the jacket to Heero, who held the leather over his mouth as he stared in the direction of the demolished building.

There wasn’t much to look at. The explosion—it had to be a bomb—brought the whole building down. The rubble was piled high, steel beams, pipes, and blocks of masonry scattered in every direction like toys. The dust in the air was still thick, but Trowa could make out at least that much.

Heero screamed Relena’s name again into the dirt and silence. Trowa could not hear a sound. He touched his ears, wondering if he had burst an ear drum. His hands were dirty, but he saw no blood on his fingers. His hearing would return eventually. But God…

Relena hadn’t been the only friend in that building. There were hundreds of delegates from the ESUN. And the Preventers… He had left them in one of the conference rooms in the basement, eating cake and tea after orientation. Trowa had gone to see if it was Heero standing on the hill. Director Une, Lucrezia Noin, Sally Po, Wufei Chang, Duo Maxwell ...

Only Quatre wasn’t there, and only because he had been part of the delegation representing the Colonies on the matter of unification. He had been in the room with Relena Darlian. Hadn’t Dorothy Catalonia been there as well, representing Romafeller, or had she left yesterday? He tried to remember.

Heero was still screaming into the dust storm, his lips forming the sound of Relena’s name over and over. Trowa couldn’t hear it. Relena certainly couldn’t hear it. No one could hear it.

The fireflies, Trowa thought abstractly. He felt a bit woozy. The fireflies were signaling to each other, but they could not see each other’s light. They were alone. No. Heero was alone. Relena was buried under tons of rubble.

And then he felt a vibration, a hum against his thigh. He felt in his pocket. His phone was buzzing. Someone was calling. Cathy? Or… no. She was in space. The news would travel fast, but would it travel that fast?

He pulled the phone out of his pocket. There was a missed message. He didn’t recognize the number. Could it be someone inside the building? Was someone still alive? With trembling hands, he texted.

_Can’t hear. Who is this?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: TBC


	3. Snowed In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the dust settles, Heero reflects on when his relationship with Relena started...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation from the March Madness challenge. Prompt #2 Snowed In.

A few days after the Mariemaia incident of AC 196, Heero Yuy woke up in a hospital bed to find Relena Darlian sitting beside him, asleep with her head turned sideways on the mattress. Her hair was down. She had taken off her jacket but still wore a ruffled blouse, skirt, and heels, showing she had come to visit him after a day of work.

Without thinking, he had reached out and touched her head. He liked the way her hair felt—fine, wispy, and warm. He pushed a stray tendril away from her cheek.

“Oh,” she said sleepily, waking up. “Oh, Heero. I’m sorry. It was snowing, so I thought I had better stay.”

He turned to look out the window. Fat, heavy snowflakes fell in a deluge of white. The flurry was so thick, he could not make out the buildings. The bottom of the window was caked in snow. After a Christmas where an attempt to drop a colony on the Earth was thwarted, it seemed fitting. The world beyond this room would be utterly transformed by drifts of snow piled high—a fresh clean slate.

He turned back to his visitor. Relena did not quite look at him. Her eyes were on her hands. She seemed slightly embarrassed. Heero realized he was sitting up shirtless in the hospital bed with an IV drip in his arm.

It wasn’t the first time he had woken up after the incident. Director Une had told him everything that happened. He had destroyed the bunker, but Wing Zero had come apart at the seams. He had entered the compound with a gun and tried to kill Mariemaia on foot, but it turned out to be unnecessary. She had already been shot but was alive. They were apparently recuperating in the same hospital.

Une had also told him about Relena. Relena had caught him when he collapsed. She had come every day to see him…

He reached out to touch her cheek. She started, looking up at him. Her eyes were a luminous green blue today, framed by pale lashes. There was a red mark on her cheek from where the sheets of his bed had made a light impression in her skin.

“Thank you,” he said. 

He put more meaning into those two words than he had ever put into any words before. Her expression told him she understood. Her eyes widened slightly, taking in the full meaning. She knew exactly what he meant. She clasped his hand in both of hers and pulled it to her face.

He smiled and touched her head again with his free hand, softly stroking her hair. He finished with what he had meant to ask her before he learned she has been kidnapped on Christmas Eve, the incident that kicked off the Mariemaia rebellion.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

He had been a little surprised when she started to cry. 

But through the tears—tears she claimed were happy—he kissed her for the first time.

*****

Ash fell like snow.

Heero had stopped screaming Relena’s name. It finally hit him. The silence.

He could not stop shaking. His throat felt raw. His lips were cracked and dry. The dust that had been a whirling maelstrom following the initial blast was now settling. His shoes were covered in it. The grass was gray with it. The air was still saturated in floating particles that made everything look hazy, but he could see the full destruction of the building now.

Could anything be alive under that mountain of steel and stone?

He wiped his face with his hands, though he knew he was only smearing the dust around. His eyes were wet, though he did not remember tears. He felt too dry for tears, too dry and dirty and empty. His arms were vibrating like he was holding a jackhammer.

The adrenaline rush was nauseating. This wasn’t like battle rush, which had been exciting, even when it was scary. This was different. He couldn’t _do_ anything with this energy. Where was his Wing Gundam? If he had Wing, he could clear this rubble. If Relena was alive somehow at the bottom of that mound of stone and ash, he could find her. He could save her.

But Wing Zero was in pieces at the bottom of the ocean.

He still could not hear. At least, his hearing was reduced, like listening to a far away conversation through layers of cotton. He thought maybe he heard sirens somewhere. First responders would be coming soon. They had to.

Jerkily, he took a step forward, down the hill, toward the rubble. Dust puffed up around his every step. He would move every rock by hand. He would do everything he could, everything he had to…

Trowa grabbed his shoulder. 

Heero turned. He shrugged Trowa off, angry that anyone would stop him. But Trowa only shoved something in front of Heero’s face. Heero found himself staring at a phone screen. Black words flashed across white.

First, he saw Trowa’s question to an unlabeled number:

_Can’t hear. Who is this?_

And then the answer.

_Dorothy. I’m with Quatre. Please help us! We are trapped._

Heero’s heart hammered. Dorothy? Dorothy! Dorothy had been in the room with Relena. Dorothy and Quatre were _alive_ in that rubble? _Where?_

Heero gave Trowa a curt nod and they both began to sprint down the hill. They were nearly halfway down when Heero saw another figure trudging up the hill toward them through the fluttering dust. She was carrying a duffle bag. There were cuts and bruises on her face. But he recognized her. His heart leapt.

It was Sally Po.


	4. Hurt/Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March Madness Prompt #9 - Hurt/Comfort

The appearance of Sally Po sent a jolt through Heero. Heero could see dozens of fire trucks and ambulances gathering at the edge of the debris now. Stretchers were laid out on the ground in rows and men and women were moving around the rubble like ants. The enormity of it hit Heero all over again.

When Sally spoke, he heard her voice as if through layers of stacked mattresses, far away and so muted he could not understand her. He pointed at his ears and shook his head.

Nodding, Sally knelt on the hilltop and opened the bag she was carrying. Heero saw that it was a medical bag emblazoned with the white serpent and staff. She fished around inside it until she found a small box. Heero didn’t recognize the box, but he did recognize what was inside it—hearing aids. They were military grade, intended to enhance hearing for purposes of espionage, but in his and Trowa’s condition, they might serve to restore normal hearing, or some semblance of it.

Sally only had one pair. She gave one to Trowa and one to Heero with a shrug indicating that it was the best she could do.

Heero was grateful. His heart was a fluttering bird that seemed to be trying hard to escape his chest, but this at least felt like doing something. He put the hearing aid in his ear and fiddled with the mechanism until Sally’s voice became suddenly clear.

“Take your time,” she said in a soft tone of voice.

Heero didn’t know what it was, but he suddenly felt so light-headed he had to bend over to keep from falling over. A storm of emotion roiled up from somewhere deep inside him. It was as if sound, any sound, made everything he had just seen suddenly real.

Reality crashed over him in a wave. The emotional lurch threatened to knock him off his feet. Feeling as if he might burst if he did nothing, he began to cry. He would rather have punched something, fought something, killed someone, but there was no one and nothing upon which to take out his fear and frustration.

“Breathe, Heero,” Sally said soothingly. “Just breathe.”

She didn’t tell him it was going to be okay, which would have felt patronizing. She did put a hand on his shoulder. The human touch drove him to deeper levels of despair. He wanted to sink into the earth. He wanted to find Relena, wherever she was, and be with her, even if it was in the ground. Two years ago, he would not have cried over an explosion, not even one he had caused, but now, because of her… He did not know if he could live without her. And he was starting to think… starting to believe…

“Weren’t you in the building?” Trowa asked Sally, drawing attention away from Heero. “What about the other Preventers?”

“The basement is miraculously intact,” Sally said. “I don’t know if it was the intended genius of the architect or just a fluke, but it held up like a bunker. There was this awful roar and rumble. The next thing we knew it was pitch black and the ceiling tiles were raining down on us. But the beams held.”

“How did you get out?”

“The building slumped more to the West. The windows and doors were on the east. It took a little effort, but we were able to dig out.”

“Injuries?”

“Nothing serious from those of us in the basement, but the rest of the building…” Sally trailed off. She looked toward the pile of rubble, her expression grave. “Heero, I know you are worried about Relena, but try to have hope.”

“Dorothy is alive,” Trowa told her, holding out his phone. “She texted me. Look.”

A look of awe transformed Sally’s face. She read the message from Dorothy. Trowa’s phone vibrated again as they were all looking at it. Another message blipped onto the screen.

_Quatre is unconscious, but he is alive. I don’t know how stable we are here. Please hurry!_

“Ask,” Heero gasped. “Ask about Relena.”

Trowa was already dialing the number.

“Dorothy,” he said. “It’s Trowa. I can hear you now. Hang on. I am going to put you on speaker with Heero and Sally Po.”

“Dorothy?” Sally said. “Dorothy, are you injured?”

“Not sure,” Dorothy gasped. Her voice sounded rough and strained. Then she laughed, a little manically. “My legs feel numb, but I can’t stand up to see if they hold my weight. We are in a small pocket. Quatre is here. I can tell you he is breathing, but not much more. He is partially under debris.”

“Where are you?” Trowa asked. “Or where were you when the building fell?”

“Relena,” Heero choked. “Do you know if Relena—?”

“I am so sorry, Heero,” Dorothy said. “I don’t know about Relena. Quatre and I are in the east central stairwell. We don’t know what happened.”

“It was a bomb,” Sally said. “We don’t know much more right now. First responders are starting to arrive. It might take some time, but we are working to get you out.”

“Thank God,” Dorothy said.

“What were you doing in the stairwell?” Heero demanded. “Relena—”

“Never you mind,” Dorothy snapped. But then she modified her tone. “I am sorry, Heero. If I knew what happened to Relena, I would tell you. All those people—” She grew quiet very suddenly. “If they’re all dead, do we even have a government anymore? God, who would do this?”

“Someone with negative feelings toward unification with the Colonies?” Trowa proposed. “Maybe an anti-government terrorist?”

Sally still had a hand on Heero’s shoulder. She gave it a squeeze of comfort.

Heero knocked her hand away. He didn't want comfort. “Whoever they are, I’m going to kill them.”


	5. Fortune Cookie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March Madness Prompt #19 - Fortune Cookie.  
> Heero reunites with the Preventers and takes action. I ordered Chinese to write this chapter. The fortune is the actual one from my cookie.

When Heero said he would kill whoever did this, Sally’s face turned to an expression of pained sympathy.

“Oh, Heero,” she said. “You don’t have to.”

“Then you should have prevented this!” he shouted at her. He could not seem to control the volume of his voice. He shouted even though it hurt his throat. He desperately needed water. He did not care. “Aren’t you the _Preventers_?”

Ash and dust blew in little eddies around them, carried by an indifferent wind. Trowa, standing just beside Heero, looked at him with the same pained expression Sally wore. Heero felt only rage.

“Let’s go down,” Sally said in a heavy voice. “I think it would be best to brief you on what we know. We can take it from there.”

It was the perfect response. Heero’s hands clenched into fists, his palms dry and hot. His neck under his collar felt hot too. He was a boiler about to steam, but Sally had disarmed him. He had expected her to tell him to take it easy, or that she understood that he was upset…. Upset didn’t begin to cover it. Heero wanted to smash something. He couldn’t remember feeling like this—not ever. During the war, he had felt calm most of the time. When he was agitated, it was usually because someone else was doing something stupid and he had to stop them. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like this—furious and ineffectual. One seemed to feed the other.

Still, he nodded, if a bit jerkily. He did not say anything as the three of them trudged down the hill together. He did not want to talk and both Trowa and Sally seemed to sense that. He could not sort through his feelings. He only knew that the pain was deep, and the grief was deeper. Rage was the only thing that kept him walking.

The rubble from the collapsed building yawned before him. It seemed to grow larger as they approached. His head could not make sense of the magnitude of the disaster. His only shred of hope was that somehow Relena was trapped in a void, alive even if all her bones were broken. But it was a small hope. She had been on the sixth floor of a seven-story building that now looked like a giant game of pick-up-sticks strewn over boulder-sized gravel.

Firemen and other emergency responders were clambering over the rubble. Close up, he could see the body of a woman being lifted out of the top of the pile. His heart leapt when he saw flaxen hair spilling over the fireman’s arm. But it wasn’t Relena. The body was also as limp as a boneless fish, dead eyes wide and staring.

Heero could see more bodies laid out in rows not far from the wreckage. There were also tents being set up and ambulances being loaded with a few people who had been injured but not killed in the blast, though he could not tell if the survivors had been found in the wreckage or merely nearby. He supposed he was one of the latter. He did not want to go to a hospital, though. Just the thought of sitting in a waiting room while Relena… His body started to shake.

“Oh, thank God. You found them.”

Heero turned his head at the sound of Lucrezia Noin’s voice. Behind her stood Wufei Chang, arms crossed in a Preventer’s jacket, looking stony-faced.

“I did,” Sally said, “and I have a lead on Quatre and Dorothy, so you’ll have to excuse me.” With that, she ran off, heading toward an area where the first responders seemed to be checking in with whoever was running the rescue efforts.

“Come on,” Noin said, waving Trowa and Heero to follow her into one of the white tarp tents that had been erected on the edge of the disaster zone.

Heero did so. Inside, he saw hastily erected tables with computers sitting on them. Behind one was Director Une, but she closed the lid when Heero and Trowa came in with Noin.

“You’re alive,” she said, sounding relieved. “Are you hurt?”

Heero knew his face must look like a rock. He could not seem to unclench his jaw.

Noin handed Trowa a bottle of water, followed by Heero. “Take a drink,” she said. “Wash your face and hands.”

Heero crushed the bottle in his hand. “Is this all?” he demanded. “Where is the person responsible?”

“We think we found him,” Une said. “Duo is on it. Please, Heero, try to stay calm.”

And what was he supposed to say to that? _Calm_? When they sent _Duo_ after him? 

“I want to help,” Heero said. “Where is he?”

“There is a lot to do,” Noin said. “But you can be of more help if you take care of yourself, Heero. You’re a victim. Drink some water first. Sit down. Eat something.”

She gestured to a table on the side of the room where there was an odd assortment of edibles, including some fruit that had seen better days, a few muffins, and a bag of fortune cookies.

Heero unscrewed the cap of the bottle and drank half of it. He splashed his face and hands with the other half and grabbed a fortune cookie from the table. Ripping open the plastic, he broke the cookie in half and stuffed it in his mouth. The piece of paper inside fluttered to the ground.

“Can I go now?” he demanded after swallowing.

As he turned toward the tent flap, Wufei knelt down and picked up the piece of paper. Crouching, he unfolded the fortune and read it aloud. “You can work both alone or with others.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“I never liked Fortune Cookies,” Wufei sighed, rolling his eyes. “But let me go with you, Heero.”


	6. Creator's Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Sundays, two weeks out of the month, authors get to write whatever they want. Submissions still have to be under 1,000 words. This one takes us back to Wufei's perspective just before the explosion.

Wufei Chang didn’t care for trivialities. He also didn’t like sweets, and thus didn’t partake in the cake that was offered after orientation for the Preventers. He had been sipping a cup of tea—slightly bitter from having been allowed to steep too long—when the ceiling collapsed.

Having grown up on the Colonies and spending most of his time in Space, he had never experienced an earthquake. For a split second, that was what he thought it was. In the next second, all the glass windows shattered, the overhead lights burst, and the ceiling tiles crashed all over the floor. The whole world seemed to shudder, and darkness closed in around them like a cloak. The sound was deafening. Wufei hit the ground, both hands stinging, fragments of linoleum rolling off the back of his coat. He looked up to see thick steel beams exposed overhead and warping low from having absorbed the collapse of an entire building.

“Get out!” Noin’s voice rang out through the room. “Everybody get out right now!”

That was easier said than done. The steel door leading outside was twisted in the frame and would not budge. All the window glass had shattered but most were blocked by heavy asphalt. Only one on the west side, which had been above the small counter in the small kitchen, showed slivers of sunlight and sky through cracks and crevices of fallen debris. Together, they pushed at the pieces they could reach until one gave way and rolled clear, making just enough space for a body to squeeze through. One by one, they climbed up onto the counter and out through the small window.

Only when they were standing on the rubble, footing uncertain and faces covered in ash, were they able to take in the massive calamity of what they had somehow survived.

“My God,” Une was saying over and over. “My God. My God.”

“Where’s Trowa?” Duo asked, turning frantically in circles.

“He left before,” Sally said. “He thought he saw Heero. I’ll… I’ll go find him.” She was carrying a medical bag that she must have grabbed from inside.

“We should move clear,” Noin says. “Pieces may continue to collapse.”

They heeded this advice in a daze, moving out from the shadow of the collapsed structure and into the sunlight. Wufei hadn’t felt such an adrenaline rush in years. His chest and arms were shaking. His head felt lighter than air, like it was about to pop right off his neck like a balloon and float away. He had experienced something like this before, back when his home Colony had… back when he lost…

Instantly, it was like he was there again, like it was happening again, and so _real_. He was in a field of wildflowers and the sun was shining and Meilan was dying. He told her he would never call her that.

“Whoa,” Noin said as he went down.

Wufei could hear her voice, but only distantly. It took him a moment to realize he had blacked out, fainting right on his feet. He came to just as quickly, but now the sky was above him and a woman’s face blotted out the sun.

“I’m so sorry, Nataku,” he muttered.

But it was Noin’s face. He blinked, disoriented.

“Hey!” Noin shouted, turning toward someone Wufei could not see. His vision was all blue sky. Where were the flowers? “Duo, help me! He’s… Something is not right.”

Wufei was carried further out of the impact zone and laid down on ash-soaked grass. He opened his eyes to see Duo peering over his face. “You okay?” Duo asked.

Wufei blinked. Everything was coming back into focus. He sat up slowly. He still felt odd. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I just… I went somewhere else.”

“Yeah, I’ve had that before,” Duo said. “Kicks you right in the teeth.”

“We need water,” Noin said. She stared out at the rubble. Her eyes became distant, vacant. “We should look for other survivors.”

Sirens blared on the horizon as she spoke.

Wufei lay his head back down.

A phone rang.

Duo’s face went white as a sheet. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a phone. He turned away from them as he answered it. “Hilde?” Wufei could hear him saying. “No, I’m okay! We were in the building, but we got out. Hold up, _where_ are you?” Duo was quiet for a moment longer, listening, and then turned back to them. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “Hilde thinks she caught the person responsible.”

"What?” Une exclaimed.

“No way,” Noin said. “Who? Where?”

Wufei took a couple of deep, calming breaths. Duo's spritely girlfriend, Hilde, had joined the Preventers right after the Mariemaia incident. She missed orientation because she had attended the last one. But she was in the area for recruiting. Could she have seen something, been in the right place at the right time?

“She says it’s a kid,” Duo said, his voice heavy with disbelief. “Not even a soldier. Just some kid. Maybe sixteen? She found him slumped over the wheel in a truck on the side of the road. At first, she thought he was unconscious, a victim, but there were empty cans of ammonium nitrate in the bed of the truck. She says he surrendered when she identified herself as a Preventer. I’m… I’m going to go check it out.”

“God,” Noin said, angry tears pooling at the corner of her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. “It’s never over, is it?”

“No,” Wufei said. “It never will be. But that’s why we have to keep fighting.”

“And Relena,” Noin whispered, gasping with sudden realization. “If she’s dead, what will that mean?”

“War,” Wufei said without ceremony. “That would quite possibly reignite the war.”


	7. That is My Least Vulnerable Spot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter answers Prompt #4: "That is my least vulnerable spot" -Casablanca, 1942.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not usually a 4xD shipper, but I was inspired by some fanart to give it a go.

Dorothy didn’t understand what was taking so long. She was wedged between a slab of concrete and a beam that had fallen slantwise across the stairs when they caved in. The only light came from her phone and she worried about running out of battery before rescuers found her.

She also worried about running out of air.

Quatre lay beside her, tousled blonde hair hiding closed eyes and creamy pale cheeks. He had bought a new suit for what they had hoped would be Unification Day and now half of his body was wedged beneath tumbled blocks of heavy stone. The suit was beyond saving. For all she knew, his body was beyond saving. He might be completely crushed from the waist down, though she hoped not. At least he was breathing—for now.

Dorothy wore a yellow sundress and sandals but regretted the choice because she felt exposed to the chill and the darkness. There were scrapes and bruises all over her legs and arms. She was going to look like a mottled pig when she got out of this.

…if she got out of this.

Tears formed at the bottom of her eyes. She bit her lip—hard—to keep the water and salt in her body where it belonged.

“I hate being weak,” she said venomously to the dead air. It was true. She really did hate it.

It was all Quatre’s fault, of course. This was the second time he had saved her life in a stupid way, if she counted the time she had stabbed him with a goddamned rapier and he countered by telling her how _kind_ he thought she was. Like seriously, what the actual hell? She had been prepared for a fiery death at the end of the world and that weak speech had made her want to live. Worse, it made her want to try to _fix_ things. After all the crap she had pulled, she could not understand why Quatre was so nice to her. He had forgiven her for a lot of shitty things she had done and believed—like really forgiven her—and it did not make any damned sense. And now, years later, he kept saying things like “you’re such a strong person, Dorothy” and “I wish I could be as confident as you, Dorothy” and it really pissed her off every single time.

“You’re so stupid,” she said to his limp body.

They were only in the stairwell because Quatre had the gall to sit next to her during Relena’s presentation and ask her, very quietly, if she wanted to go get lunch with him after the conference.

She had just _sat_ there, bug-eyed and disbelieving, like a pricked pony. Then she stood up, seized him by the arm, and dragged him out of the room. He protested as she pulled him down the hall and shoved him into the emergency stairwell. Relena had only glanced at Dorothy from the podium when they exited. She was amazing, that girl—never a ruffled feather.

Quatre, of course, did not understand. He wore a dopey expression when she whirled on him, fists on her hips, ready to rage.

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“I thought you might be hungry,” he said defensively.

“You can’t _date_ me! I would eat you alive!” she snapped at him. “I swear to God, Quatre, you have _no_ sense of self preservation. Do you have any idea what my life is like?”

“I know you do a lot behind the scenes to defend Relena’s platform.”

“I don’t _defend_ Relena,” Dorothy said. “I go on the _attack_ for Relena. If you knew what these people are really like, these sharks, and how much time I voluntarily spend with them—”

“I _do_ know. I really admire you.”

She wanted to shake him. “You don’t get it,” she snapped. “You don’t get _me_.” She gesticulated wildly, waving her arms first at him and then pointing to herself. “You and I? We would _not_ work. I was put on this earth to intimidate queens and harass genocidal dictators. I am also taller than you and richer than you and—”

“You’re not richer than me,” Quatre interrupted. “And—” He motioned, moving his hand over the top of his head to her head.

She gaped. He was taller than her now, by a little over an inch, and her sandals even had little heels!

“Come on, Dorothy,” he said. “Get lunch with me.”

“No.”

“You can pick the place,” he persisted. “Although I won’t lie. I am hoping a little food might soften your heart.”

“That’s my least vulnerable spot,” she huffed, quoting a movie that was so old, it had been filmed in black and white. There was no way he would ever recognize—

His blue eyes brightened. “Hey, I like classics too! Do you want to watch Casablanca together?”

She stared at him, apoplectic to the point she could not speak. Because she found that she _did_ want to watch Casablanca with Quatre. And that galled. That really, really… 

It was a surprise to her when she leaned in suddenly to kiss him. She had no idea she was going to do it. But he caught her by the shoulders as if _he_ had been expecting it. And actually… actually…

That was when the bomb went off. She didn’t remember falling. She opened her eyes to pitch blackness and Quatre’s body next to hers, unresponsive to her shouts and slaps. She’d been able to reach her phone. She had Trowa’s number, though she’d never called him. Quatre had given it to her once, saying he wanted her to stay connected to people who cared about her…

She turned on her phone but had no new texts.

“You had better not die,” she hissed at Quatre. She was afraid to touch him, but carefully brushed hair from his eyes. He looked like he was sleeping. “It would be so stupid if you died!”


	8. Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero searches for Duo. Wufei tells a story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> March Madness Prompt #15: "Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb." Since a literal bomb already went off in this story, I took a metaphorical approach to this prompt.

The search for Duo and the alleged terrorist took Heero around to the far side of the collapsed building, where the front doors had once faced the city streets. The more he saw of the destruction, the more anger gnawed at his heart, threatening to consume him.

Wufei walked beside him, observing the carnage in contemplative silence. They passed a crew directing a forklift to shift a steel beam that had crushed—and seemed to have killed—three people. Other than the Preventers, Heero had seen few survivors so far. Those he had seen made his insides contract. A man covered in soot and ash had been pulled screaming from a pile of charred concrete. The man was missing an eye and half of his face was a scalded mess. Heero had also seen a woman’s leg being sawed off just below the knee so her body could be pulled free from debris. He wasn’t sure if the woman had been dead or alive.

Heero had gone from wishing to find Relena safe and unharmed to wishing he would find her at all. In the space of an hour, his life had been irrevocably altered. He could not think about anything accept _finding_ her, not even what her death might mean for the fragile union between Earth and the Colonies. And yet, he could not bring himself to join the work crews plucking through the wreckage to recover bodies. He did not want to find Relena’s _body_ , though he could not seem to stop picturing it in his mind.

“Did I ever tell you that I was married?” Wufei said.

Heero missed a step.

“It was an arranged thing,” Wufei said. “A traditional obligation, mostly ceremony. She died right before the war.”

Heero had absolutely no idea what to say. He could not even absorb this information.

“I was just a smartass kid, but I thought I had life all figured out,” Wufei continued. Then he muttered: “I’m still just a kid.”

Heero was seventeen but he could not remember ever feeling like a kid. As far back as he could remember, he knew how to use a gun. Until he met Relena, his whole life had been about careful calculations designed for retaliation and destruction. He had never allowed himself to want anything, never allowed himself to believe he was worth having anything. A girl _liking_ him? A nosy, aristocratic girl with money and political connections? _That_ hadn’t been in his calculations at all. Meeting her had blown apart his whole existence. For most of the war, he had been convinced that if he just killed Relena, he could put it all back the way it had been. He chose not to because of her political successes. But eventually, he came to realize a deeper truth: Underneath his training, he too was just a kid. He was an adolescent human male, and he did not want to kill the pretty girl that liked him.

Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb.

“I spent a lot of the war feeling angry,” Wufei continued. “It was a relentless, unmitigated rage. I thought everyone was either weak or evil and I alone could bring justice.” He paused, not looking at Heero. His eyes were gazing far away. “It took me a long time to understand that I had been deeply hurt by what happened to my clan and the girl who was supposed to be my wife. I needed to be justice incarnate because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.”

“You don’t seem so angry now,” Heero observed.

“ _You_ snapped me out of it,” Wufei said. Heero felt a chill pierce right through him. “You and your talk about killing that girl and her dog. To this day I don’t even know what you were talking about, but I understood what you were saying. You reminded me that we’ve all lost something. We have all made mistakes and been betrayed and hate that we have to exist like this, wounded and bereft and forced to find meaning where we can. But we _can_ choose.”

A wind stirred and Wufei closed his eyes. Heero felt the cool air on his cheeks, but his eyes felt too hot to close.

“I want to have a peaceful heart,” Wufei said finally, opening his eyes again. “But I know I cannot have peace unless I spend every day fighting for it. That’s why I wanted you to join the Preventers.”

Heero was wearing the jacket now. He plucked uncertainly at the logo on the sleeve.

“I also wanted you to understand that I get the anger you are feeling,” he said. “Because I lived in a bubble of rage for nearly two years. I hope you won’t have to suffer as I did. We all hope Relena is alive. We are all terrified she is dead. It’s political for me but personal for you. I get that. But you should know that I respect her—Relena Peacecraft. I didn’t always, but I count myself in her camp now. I want her to survive.”

Heero wanted to express gratitude, but he did not know how. The words would not come.

“If she is alive,” Wufei added. “My only advice to you, as a married man—” He smiled wryly. “—is to tell her how you feel about her, clearly and often. Women have strong heads but soft hearts. They need reminders.”

Heero said nothing. He wanted to tell Relena a lot of things… if she was alive. Mostly, he just wanted to hold her.

Wufei pointed. “I think that’s our man,” he said. Then he took a deep breath. “This might be hard. If Hilde’s right, this terrorist is about our age, doing the same sorts of things we did. Try to remember that.”


	9. The Princess and Her Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero reflects on the progressing intimacy of his relationship with Relena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Answering March Madness Prompt #1: The Princess and Her Protector

“A picture for the paper, princess?”

Heero let go of Relena’s hand long enough for her to turn and smile at the young boy holding an old camera. He was about eleven or twelve years old and staring at her with wide-eyed amazement. Heero didn’t blame him. Relena was radiant. She wore a white dress with a voluminous flowing skirt that billowed in the breeze, her long hair glinting gold in the sunlight.

“The Sanq Kingdom hasn’t existed for quite some time,” she told the boy. “I am the Vice Foreign Minister now. But you can take my picture.” Heero made to back away, but Relena reached her hand back for his fingers. “Can you photograph us together?” she asked the boy.

“Who is he?” the boy asked, holding up the camera.

“My protector,” Relena said, looking over her shoulder at Heero as the camera flashed, her fingers resting lightly in his outstretched hand. “And my boyfriend.”

That photograph appeared in every paper across Earth and in the Colonies.

Heero didn’t care for the attention, but he didn’t pay it much mind either. He had asked Relena to be his girlfriend and he knew that meant standing next to her and being gawked at from time to time. People habitually asked him his real name, especially people who had been enamored of the real Heero Yuy, but he ignored them. They knew he was a Gundam Pilot and that Relena Peacecraft—or Relena Darlian as she insisted being called whenever she was given the choice—was his girlfriend.

They gave no interviews. Because of their reticence with the press, some said the photograph was a hoax. Others said there was no way to dismiss the affection in Relena’s eyes as she looked at Heero. It didn’t matter. The weeks following his release from the hospital after the Mariemaia incident were some of the happiest Heero had known.

There was just one problem.

He didn’t know what to _do_ with Relena. She always wanted to see him. He always wanted to kiss her. Beyond that, he did not know what was proper or expected. He did not have any idea how they were supposed to spend time together. He did not know if he was supposed to kiss her whenever he wanted or wait for her to indicate that she wanted to. Most times he saw her, she wanted to, so after a while, he stopped worrying about it.

But that gave way to another problem. What if he wanted to do _more_ than kiss her?

The thought left him hot under the collar, but the more he kissed her the more he thought about it. As weeks stretched into months, it became an all-consuming contemplation.

One day, under a bright blue sky, they sat kissing on a bench in a secluded garden, their faces completely obscured from public view by rose bushes and white birch trees. Heero was finding it hard to stop touching Relena when they kissed now. His fingers were on her neck, threading through her hair, cupping her face so he could turn her mouth toward his. Kissing her was electrifying, dizzying and terrifying all at once. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her. And yet he still wanted more.

“Heero,” she breathed as he released her long enough to gasp for air. Her eyes were liquid pools, brimming with something he recognized instinctively though he could not name it. It made him want to… He felt his face heating.

“Heero,” she said again, this time grasping at the inside edge of his coat, as if needing the support to stay sitting up right. “I think…” She swallowed. “I want…” She did not finish her sentence. A rosy blush creeped across her cheeks.

He kissed her again, hungrier this time, more insistent than he’d been before—more than he’d ever been. His tongue sought the inside of her mouth. His heart was hammering in his chest. Their thighs were pressed together on the bench. He let one hand land on her knee. He was almost comically respectful and had not touched her body below the shoulders before now, unless it was a hand on the small of her back. She arched into his kiss and he knew then that she was thinking the same thing.

But…

He was at a loss for what to do next. The instinct felt natural enough. But the garden was not a location suitable for more than stealing kisses. Besides which, she had to go back to work. He should give this some thought. Were there preparations to consider? Should he plan something or let her lead? Where could they go to be together privately?

His brain seemed to tick to a stop.

Relena leaned back, smiling at him bemusedly. She looked into his eyes and seemed to see the desire warring with uncertainty. She touched his chest with the flat of her hand. It sent a thrill through him to be touched like that.

“Will you meet me for lunch tomorrow?” she asked him. “On the hill behind the building?”

He knew exactly where she meant. He would be able to see her presentation to the ESUN from there. “Yes,” he said.

She smiled. “Good,” she said. “We’ll get lunch. And then… well, then we’ll see where the night takes us.”

He lifted her hand and kissed the inside of her palm. He looked into her eyes while he did it. “I wish it was tomorrow already,” she told him regretfully as she stood. “But I have to get back now. I will see you tomorrow for lunch?”

Lunch never came.

Wufei pointed toward a truck parked on the far side of the street. Heero could see Duo in his Preventer’s jacket. But he could also see the entrance to the garden where he had made Relena a promise. Something inside him seized up.


	10. I Keep Getting Your Mail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo meets up with Hilde. Heero and Wufei join them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> %*^& March Madness prompt #7 "I keep getting your mail". This chapter may be less inspired than some of the others...or maybe I pulled it off? I am actively trying to work in all G-pilot viewpoints on purpose. Also, I worked until midnight last night and will be again tonight so not a lot of fic writing brain power went into this. I wrote it in 50 minutes.

Duo was used to walking through landfills of construction debris, but it was different when the waste represented a whole building that had been intact that morning.

The ash from the explosion had mostly settled but pieces of gray papery specks still swirled around the air as first responders moved back and forth between the trucks and ambulances lined up on along the street and the site of the collapse. The first order of business had been to shore up the remaining bits of structure to make it safe for workers. Equipment was being used to lift and shift debris in the search for bodies.

Duo found Hilde across the street from the disaster zone. She stood with deceptive casualness on the sidewalk next to a white truck. She wore a light purple sweater and a pair of ankle-cut jeans that clove spectacularly to her curves. He knew she carried a gun on her person but if she had showed it when first confronting the suspect, she had put it away since.

As Duo neared, Hilde’s head popped up as if she could sense him coming. That was impossible of course. He was much too stealthy. But she turned her head in his direction, her short pixie haircut framing a delicate face that looked sadder than he liked. 

“Duo,” she said. “I just can’t believe any of this.”

Duo wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She was short, the top of her head barely reaching his upper chest, but she clung to him with a grip that made him grunt.

“I am so thankful you didn’t come today,” he whispered into her ear.

They had argued about it actually. Duo had wanted Hilde to come because he wanted the other Gundam Pilots to get to know her better, but Hilde didn’t see the point. They knew who she was and just because they had met once during the war didn’t exactly make them friends. Besides which, most of the other Gundam Pilots were a bit too… taciturn for her taste.

Duo had to concede this point. Although Hilde was a field trained soldier, she was different from the others. It turned out that her greatest strength was in recruiting. She was attractive, talkative, easy going, and relentless when it came to building relationships. She had gotten hundreds of people to sign up for Preventer information sessions in just a few months.

To see her looking so somber smote his heart.

“So who is he?” Duo asked, rubbing her back. “Our terrorist?”

“That’s just it,” Hilde said, pulling free. “He’s just like one of you. He’s not a soldier, but…” She bit her lip. “He’s like any young person I would recruit to join the Preventers. I just can’t help thinking... what if I had met him yesterday?”

“It’s not your fault, Hilde,” Duo said. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“He’s working alone,” Hilde said. “He says so anyway and I believe him. If this was a larger thing—something planned—I think we would have heard about it. He said he opposes the unification of Earth and the Colonies, that it was the old Alliance that led to the war. But… It just doesn’t seem like enough.”

Duo scrubbed a hand through his hair, fingers catching in the weaves of his braid. “Yeah, that doesn’t make much sense,” he muttered. “A lot of people are unsure about unification, but to blow up your own representatives?”

“I know! He’s from Earth too. If anyone opposed unification, it should be people from the Colonies. I just can’t understand it. I expected someone angry, or at least defiant at being caught, but he was just sitting there. He’d already pulled over. He watched the building collapse from across the street. He didn’t even try to get away.”

“Where’d he get the explosives?”

“We didn’t get that far, but the truck is registered to a fertilizer plant. I think he works there. I didn’t want to question him too much without backup.”

“Good thinking,” Duo said. “It looks like we’re about to get some.”

Duo gestured. Heero and Wufei were approaching from the explosion site. Wufei showed no hint of emotion, all calculations hidden behind a smooth face and dark, glittering eyes. In contrast, Heero looked like he was about to erupt. From twenty paces away, Duo could tell that he was as tense as a coiled spring.

“Heero,” he called. “It’s been a while. You don’t return my calls. I’ve been trying to get in touch.”

Heero didn’t answer.

“I keep getting your mail,” Duo told him. “Can you please stop registering your address as my address? Actually, can you also stop using my name or pretending to be me in general?”

Duo meant it as a joke, a reminder of days gone by intended to diffuse some of the tension that was spiking out from the pilot, but Heero turned those blazing Prussian blue eyes on him with a ferocity that made Duo take a step back.

“Okay,” Duo said, waving his hands. “Never mind. Do what you want. I just thought maybe you’d be getting your own place soon, somewhere near Relena since—”

He tried to call the words back, but it was too late. The thought had escaped his lips before he’d worked all the way through it.

The look Heero shot him could have melted rock into slab. But then Heero's gaze flickered to the truck. Without another word, he launched himself passed Duo, moving so quickly he startled Wufei.

Heero flung open the driver side door. He pulled a gun from somewhere beneath his jacket and pointed it at the boy behind the wheel.


	11. Animal Instinct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this day's March Madness chapter is "animal instinct."

_I never have to kill anyone ever again. I don’t have to anymore._

Sunlight glinted off the barrel of the gun that Heero brandished from beneath his jacket—loaded, cocked, and aimed at a spot between the eyes of the perpetrator in one fluid motion.

“Heero, no!” Hilde cried out. “Don’t!”

But Heero didn’t care what Hilde thought. She was nobody to him. If she was anything, it was a reminder of what Duo had that he didn’t have anymore. The minute he’d seen Duo standing next to Hilde, leaning into her personal space but looking so relaxed, so happy in her presence, he wanted to smack the smile off Duo’s face, to knock his teeth out.

Part of him knew that wasn’t fair. Duo hadn’t meant anything by mentioning Relena as if she was still alive. If anything, Duo had shown more interest in Heero’s relationship with Relena than anyone else he knew. But it grated. It had always grated. Duo and Hilde’s relationship was so … simple. They weren’t hesitant with each other. Their touches weren’t awkward. They weren’t _new_ to loving each other, excited by every brush of skin on skin, wondering what the hell they were supposed to do next. They weren’t afraid. They just… were.

And Heero… Heero was so… _jealous_ of that.

But he could channel that energy. What had Wufei said? Justice. He was justice incarnate.

“Say goodbye,” he said to the boy sitting in the driver’s seat. “This is the end for you.”

The face that stared back at him, wide-eyed with terror, barely registered to Heero as human. It was a plain face with slightly overlarge ears. A stranger's face. He couldn’t see humanity in the features in front of him, couldn’t distinguish them from any other random shapes. His actions were propelled by animal instinct.

His mate was dead. And this was the punk who had savagely, callously, brutally killed her. He just wanted him dead too.

He pulled the trigger.

It was Duo that stopped him from committing murder right there on the street. He came out of nowhere, flying at Heero like a bat out of hell. His hands knocked the gun aside just as Heero pulled the trigger. The bullet shot out of the barrel at an angle, denting the panel above the front wheel of the truck. The gun itself clattered to the concrete under Heero's feet. At the same moment, Duo kicked at Heero’s leg below the knee with a sharp, precise jab that crippled his stance. Pain shot up Heero’s leg and he crashed to the sidewalk. He cursed as Duo threw his weight on top of him.

“Get off of me!” Heero snarled. Heero’s hand-to-hand combat skills were better than Duo’s. It ought to have been easy to regain the upper hand, throw Duo off him, grab the gun, and finish what he had started...but he couldn’t seem to think at all. His body wouldn’t obey him the way he wanted it to. He flailed helplessly, emotion buzzing through him in such torrents that he couldn’t see straight.

“I won’t let you do this,” Duo huffed in his face. “Listen to me, Heero. You’ll regret it. I know you don’t need a gun to kill, so please just listen to me. Don’t do this. _She_ wouldn’t want you to.”

The rage that obscured Heero’s perception softened slightly, just enough for him to let out a sob and gasp for air at the same time. Sanity rushed back into him. He felt the cold, hard ground beneath his shoulder blades. There was ash in his hair. His head was still spinning. He lay still, taking a few deep breaths to let the anger out and the calm back in. Then he shoved Duo off of him and got up, limping slightly on the knee that Duo had kicked.

“I’m really sorry I said what I said,” Duo said, breathing heavily as he too scrambled to his feet. “Heero, please believe me. I wasn’t thinking. It may not seem like it, but I’m upset about this—really bewildered and just...upset. When the world goes mad, I say stupid stuff. I make jokes. I know no one finds them funny, but it’s how I cope. I didn’t mean it.”

“She’s dead,” Heero said. The words left his mouth like drops of lead. It was the first time he had said them, admitted out loud that she might really be gone, that she probably was. He covered his face with his hands. He did not cry. There did not seem to be tears in him. There was nothing but a cold, yawning emptiness. But he did not want anyone to see his face.

“Heero, if she is, I am so sorry,” Duo said. “But we don’t know that for sure.”

Heero couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want Duo’s sympathy. He didn’t want to be standing here, feeling like a wounded animal.

Wufei approached, face completely implacable, as if what had just happened hadn’t happened at all.

“Let’s ask some questions,” he said. “Will that suit you, Heero?”

Heero said nothing.

Wufei turned to the boy. “You,” he said. “I want to know your name.”

“My name?” the boy said, soft and quiet, staring up at Wufei in his Preventer's jacket with a child's wide brown eyes.

“Yeah,” Wufei said. “I want to know the name of the kid who blew up the ESUN. And I want to know why."

The boy's eyes flickered to Heero. "Who's he?"

"He's Relena Peacecraft's boyfriend,” Wufei said. "You might have heard of him--The Gundam Pilot from the Colonies who saved the Earth? He's pretty upset so I suggest you start talking, or we're going to give him his gun back."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: TBC?


End file.
